


static

by reshirama



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 13:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reshirama/pseuds/reshirama
Summary: It’s not perfect. But nothing ever is. But it’s as good as it’s going to get, and Jane has spent too much of her life tip-toeing on eggshells to be ungrateful.(post ep 9 self care fic bcs wow)





	static

**Author's Note:**

> hi im ramiel and i attach onto every character w DID bcs i too have DID.... theres a LOT i can relate to when it comes to jane but. hgg. anyway. enjoy fic, doomed patrol fandom

There’s something about returning from the Underground after a long period of time away that makes you ache. The Underground is slimy and disgusting and smells of damp and wet, but there’s something about being in it that makes Jane’s whole being lighter. Probably the simple knowledge that she doesn’t have to exist in the body.

The body is a fleshy shackle around Jane’s neck. It aches, and the bones feel like they’re made out of steel, rusted and heavy and painful.

But she’s here now. She’s here now, in the body, and in the background, some of the other chatter. There’s Hammerhead’s distinctive snarl, their voice bouncing off of the walls, and Flit’s complaints. If she listens enough, she could sink back down into the Underground, back to sleep again, where it’s quiet, and there’s no skin to hurt and no bones to break. But The Secretary would get mad again. 

_ We all have to pull our weight, Jane. _ Her voice makes Jane want to puke. But there is one thing she’s right about: she has a job to do.

The body needs to function. It needs an outside life, and it needs someone to live in it like a funeral suit. Jane just happens to be the unlucky fucker who gets that lot in life. 

She was never meant to be the primary. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Miranda was born for this, born to live in ignorance and born to function. Jane was born to  _ know _ and born to understand. She’s hardly the best choice for a primary.

But when it came down to it, and Miranda had self destructed in a burst of pain and fear and anger, Jane was the only one left who could bear the weight.

She’s cracking, though. 

 Karen’s stupid dress clings to her, all sheer and white, and she pulls it off, wants to rip it up, pour The Hangman’s Daughter’s paint all over it, and set it alight. She settles for kicking it under the bed, like a monster, sitting all bright and shining and menacing. A glorious and foiled attempt at normalcy, pristine and disgusting and false. 

Clothes are the only way any member of the Underground knows how to choose to express themselves. Everything else about the body, even the changes that come over it when they switch, aren’t their choice. Jane’s is not for fashion but purely comfort. No makeup. No nonsense. 

She’s pulling on her boots when there’s a knock on her door. She freezes, eyes flicker behind. Fight or flight mode is still running through her veins, and her body tenses painfully in a question of  _ which, which one, Jane, which one now? _

 “Jane?” Cliff’s rusted voice scratches through her door, and she relaxes. Slightly. 

Men make them all uncomfortable, with the exception of maybe Scarlet, or Babydoll. Cliff always seemed safer than the average man, but the sight of him, covered in blood, reeking of viscera and metal, still echoes in the back of her mind like a phantom.

He’s done more than enough to prove himself, more than enough for her to trust him.

But Jane trusts no one except the Underground, and even that trust has been shattered by the Sisters’ bony hands. Jane is the primary, and therefore the epicentre of all hurt that will eventually come the body’s way, so she must be strong. 

 “Hey, uh… we’re gonna. Go grab something to eat. You wanna come?” It’s a peace offering. She should take it. 

_ Don’t _ . Hammerhead snaps in the Underground. “I’ll be there. Give me a moment.” Jane calls, hears Hammerhead swear, and leans forward, blocking out the voices. 

“Oh! Sweet. Uh, I’ll see you there.” Cliff’s footsteps clunk down the hall, and Jane thinks for a moment, hangs on the genuine surprise in his voice. He thought she was going to shoot him down.

She decides she’ll think about how she feels about that later. She needs to get high for this. 

 

She appears in the manor’s main room later, sufficiently not sober, and watches the others mill around. Are they leaving? Are they going to do that again? There’s a chatter of anxiety from the back of her head, and she shakes her head. 

 “We’re ordering pizza.” Vic says, and Jane raises an eyebrow. He sighs. “What kind do you want?”

There’s a clamour of noise in the Underground. Hammerhead wants pepperoni. Babydoll wants pineapple. Everyone has some opinion on something. 

Rage snarls inside her, like a dog with a muzzle. It’s just fucking pizza.

“Plain’s good. Just get plain.” She throws herself down onto the sofa, feels the press of four pairs of eyes on her. “What?”

No one answers. The silence is sticky, like drying blood. She should have listened to Hammerhead. The next ten minutes are spent filled by white noise, the sound of Larry and Rita and Vic’s voices rushing like a radio on the wrong setting while Cliff stares, stares all glassy eyed and still, and Jane is reminded that he doesn’t actually need to blink.

Kids at school used to play staring competition games. Jane knows because she was around then, a tiny girl with a lot of memories that didn’t belong to her, in a body that didn’t belong to her either. 

Miranda hadn’t had any friends, but Jane hadn’t known that, had stared into other kids eyes, and been left behind when they found out they couldn’t win. It had confused her. It doesn’t anymore. You become older and wiser.

Anyway. However fucking good she was when she was eight years old, she doesn’t think she’ll win against Cliff now, who blinks when he feels like it, despite not needing to. God, he pisses her off in a way that also makes her want to shit herself out of fear.

She also thinks he might be one of the best friends she’s ever had outside of the Underground, but the bar there’s pretty low. 

The doorbell rings, and Jane hops up before everyone else, feeling the static buzz round her head. She snatches the pizza out of the confused pizzaboy’s hands, chucks some notes at him, and slams the door shut.

Everything is so much. The boxes feel too hot in her hands, the silence of the halls of the manor sound as loud as the chatter and words of the rest of the Underground behind her. 

She slaps the boxes down on the table, and scoops up hers, runs out of there, feeling the fog begin to cloud round her eyes, round the base of her neck, round her wrists. She sits down on the stairs, hears the  _ thump thump thump _ of robot feet on the floor. She sits there, squints up at Cliff. She’d yell at him, if he didn’t know to not be scared of her anymore. She hates that he’s been in her head, but there’s a kind of understanding that no one’s had before.

He saw… everything. She can’t take it back. It feels disgusting and invasive, but she has… an ally now, she guesses. Not one she’d ever ask for, but it’s not like anyone had a choice. 

“Does it… taste good?” Cliff asks, and the fog recedes slightly. “Sorry, sorry, just… I like to know. Is it good? Y’know. No way to eat.” There’s a weird touch in his voice. His fingers rap his leg, over and over and over -  _ taptaptap _ \- and she’d be annoyed if it wasn’t obvious how close he’d be to crying if his eyes had tear ducts. 

 “It’s not the best pizza I’ve ever had,” she says, maintaining eye contact. (Last one to blink wins.) “But it’ll do. Y’know when you need things so fucking badly that it doesn’t matter how gross they are? Yeah.” Cliff tilts his head to the side, and his eyes click. (She wins.) Jane wonders if he’s thinking the same that she is. 

The pizza’s a pretty good metaphor for their current relationship: rushed and tacky and kinda greasy but they’ve both been so so starved for kindness for years now. All of them have been, in this manor. Jane guesses they all need some pizza.

Cliff doesn’t breathe, and he doesn’t make a lot of noise, so the sound of the static fades a little with him around. He holds his hand out as she curses when she burns her fingers on the pizza, and she stacks steaming slices on his metal hand as she blows on her fingers.

It’s not perfect. But nothing ever is. But it’s as good as it’s going to get, and Jane has spent too much of her life tip-toeing on eggshells to be ungrateful. 

Sometimes forgiveness isn’t words. Sometimes it’s burned fingers and cheap pizza and silence on dusty wooden staircases. Sometimes it’s hardly there at all, but Jane knows better than to ask for too much when she’s had so much taken away in the past. She’ll take what she can get. She’ll take whatever life gives her outstretched, grasping, empty hands.


End file.
